The planet of the apes (novel)

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The planet of the apes (original title: La Planète des singes ) is a French novel written by Pierre Boulle . The original edition was published by Editions Julliard in Paris in 1963.

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Phyllis and Jinn find a letter in a bottle during an interstellar journey. It is a report by the reporter Ulysse (French for Odysseus) Mérou, who describes the journey of him, Professor Antelle and the young scientist Arthur Levain. They fly from Earth at almost the speed of light to Betelgeuse , find a planet there that is very similar to Earth, and therefore decide to name it Soror (Latin for "sister"). You decide to land on this one with a dinghy to explore.

As they explore the area, they find footprints. Apparently, they are in the footsteps of a woman that they later meet while bathing in a river. Strangely enough, she can't talk and is naked. Mérou calls her Nova (Latin for new). When he smiles at her, she disappears. The next day they want to meet Nova again and therefore repeat the bath. This time a whole group of naked people appear, including Nova. When Mérou and his comrades get dressed again, some of the wild people flee as if they were afraid of clothing. Others want to attack them, but they fear their weapons.

The "savages" shred all their things and the dinghy was destroyed by them. Great apes appear early the next morning, attracted and behaved like humans on earth. They are people hunters and kill many of the dumb people. The hunters themselves are gorillas, chimpanzees serve as hunting helpers.

Mérou is captured and locked in a cage. The gorillas take photos with the people killed in the hunt, Mérou recognizes one of the corpses as Levain. There is no trace of Professor Antelle, his other companion. At first Mérou assumed that the apes serve a human-like race, but he quickly realizes that the apes are the rulers of this world. You have technology that resembles that of the earth from 1960. People are considered animals and are treated that way. The monkeys take Mérou to a behavioral research laboratory and find that he appears to be far more intelligent than the other humans.

The gorillas carry out tests on humans in the laboratory that are reminiscent of Pavlov's animal experiments on Earth. Mérou does everything possible to prove his intelligence. His attempts to talk to the monkeys fail because of a common language. However, the monkeys are very astonished at his behavior. The head of the research station is a zoologist named Zira. She and her fiancé Cornélius are chimpanzees and very interested in him. Zaius, a respected orangutan, is the head of the institute and therefore the superior of Zira. He and his secretary come to see the strange Mérou. Mérou tries to prove in the intelligence tests that he is not an animal, but a thinking being. Zaius sees this only as trained behavior, as it is observed in animals on earth. When the captured humans are brought together in pairs, Mérou is happy to get together with Nova in the process.

Mérou steals her notepad and pen from Zira during a visit and draws a picture of Nova. Zira is impressed and hands him the pad again. Now he shows Zira that he knows the Pythagorean theorem . He also makes a sketch of our solar system and explains to her that it comes from earth. He eventually learns the monkey language from her and can learn more about her society through books. He also finds his comrade Antelle in a circus. But he has lost the ability to speak and think logically. He behaves like a Soror man.

Finally, during a science conference at which he is to be demonstrated as particularly docile, Mérou proves his intelligence to the audience by addressing him in the language of the apes and becomes famous. In the address he reveals his origin from the earth and blames himself for not having been immediately recognized as an intelligent being. He wants to get in contact with the people of the earth in order to ensure a successful cooperation with the apes on Soror.

Cornélius, who prepared Mérou for the conference, becomes the new head of the institute after Zaius, who compared Mérous speeches to a parrot parroting words, is transferred to another post.

Cornélius, who is very interested in Soror's past, finds a human doll in a ruined city who wears clothes and can even talk. Cornélius and Mérou recognize that the people of Soror once kept monkeys as pets until they began to imitate human behavior and treat humans like animals.

Nova gives birth to a child of Mérou named Sirius, who seems to have the normal intelligence of an earth man. The monkeys are afraid that this baby will represent the beginning of a new human race that will again suppress the monkeys. Zira and Cornélius therefore decide to help Mérou, Nova and the baby. They manage to get the three of them into a satellite as experimental humans. The intended test people are issued as Mérou, Nova and Sirius so that the escape is not noticed. To the monkeys, all humans look the same anyway. With the satellite they dock onto the abandoned spaceship and can fly to Earth. During the trip, Sirius and his mother Nova learn French.

When they land on earth - due to the time dilation 700 years in the future - they are shocked: a uniformed gorilla climbs out of the car that drives to the landing site of the second dinghy. Apparently the earth has taken the same path as the Soror and is now also ruled by intelligent apes. Nova flees into the dinghy. Apparently the three have left the earth again and Mérou then wrote his report in which his journey is described.

At the end of the novel, it turns out that the two travelers, Phyllis and Jinn, think the report is a creative novel. They are chimpanzees and do not believe that humans used to be intelligent, thoughtful and able to develop civilization and such advanced technology.

German book publication

  • Pierre Boulle: Planet of the Apes. Revised new edition. Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-453-19785-2 . (From the French by Alexandra and Gerhard Baumrucker)

Film adaptations

Web links